


Running Away, Coming Home (the links on a chain remix)

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Jewish Character, Children, Holidays, Kid Fic, M/M, Mansion Fic, Running The School Together, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4172784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Families are complicated things. Secrets and surprises, endings and beginnings; sixteen years and four and a half conversations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Away, Coming Home (the links on a chain remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [listerinezero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Another Teenage Runaway](https://archiveofourown.org/works/941811) by [listerinezero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/pseuds/listerinezero). 



**Winter 1973**

However many years may pass between Raven's visits, the house never seems to change. At least outwardly: the imposing and ostentatious facade is unchanged since the night thirty years before that it tempted a young girl with promises of a full larder. Walking up the path from the taxi, carrying her suitcase in one hand, there's a part of Raven that still feels like a child, or at least the confused and frustrated girl she was a dozen years back.

Inside the mansion is a different story, luckily. Charles and Erik might as well have torn it down and rebuilt the place from scratch for how different it feels, even as she can still recognize the familiar rooms and walls from her youth. She's been here a handful of times over the years, but the novelty hasn't worn off: it's a _school_ , through and through, Charles's ambitions made manifest. 

She sets her suitcase down in the foyer and follows the sound of laughter and music through the halls and into one of the large parlors. There's a trimmed tree in the corner, Christmas carols on a record player, and five or six teenagers (students, she assumes, the ones who either can't afford to go home for the holiday or don't have a home to go to) settled on couches around the room, eating cookies and drinking punch and chatting loudly to each other. And, of course, in the middle of it all, Charles, set in his wheelchair like a king on his throne, looking over it all with his benevolent paternal eye.

He turns his head as Raven enters the room, the smile already on his face widening into a bright grin. It warms something in her chest, despite herself, and she crosses over to him. When she leans down to kiss his cheek, he wraps her into a lingering hug.

"You look surprised to see me," Raven says, when Charles finally releases her. 

"Shouldn't I be?" Charles responds, giving her an arch look. "I haven't heard from you since the spring."

"We've been busy," Raven says. She can tell Charles wants to press for details, but he doesn't.

"I'm glad you're here now, at any rate." He grins again, a sly secret thing that takes her back another twenty years, at odds with the stuffy headmaster in every way. "I have a surprise for you, as well. In fact..." Charles's face takes on a newfound focus, his eyes far away as he clearly accesses his telepathy. "I believe the car is just coming up the driveway now."

Of course Charles would insist on being mysterious, too. Raven should have expected it. He's as bad as Irene sometimes.

Raven fetches her own cup of punch and cookie from the table in the corner before coming back to sit in one of the chairs close to Charles. A few of the teenagers spare her curious glances, but most of them seem too involved in their own conversations and concerns to be too interested in another grown up. Not even her blue skin or scales seem to attract attention; she's far from the only person in the room with a visible physical mutation. 

Charles seems excited--whatever the surprise is, Raven figures, it must be a good one for him to be this eager. Only a few minutes pass before Charles reaches out and grabs her hand. "Here they come!" he whispers, and Raven turns her head to the door in curiosity--but it's only Erik, and another two teenagers right behind him, all of them finishing pulling off their winter gloves and hats even as they enter the room.

Erik raises his eyebrows at the sight of her, and Raven has to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at him or make a funny face. Erik murmurs something to the boy beside him, who immediately shoots her a look, frowning intently as he studies her before he says something equally soft to Erik in return.

"If your surprise is _Erik_ , I'm really disappointed in you, Charles," Raven says. "I would be surprised if Erik _wasn't_ here. His name is on the gate, for god's sake."

"He's not the surprise," Charles says, sounding irritatingly serene as Erik heads across the room to them.

"Now I understand why you were so insistent about us hurrying in," Erik says to Charles, before turning to Raven. "You're looking well, Mystique."

Raven stands, and they exchange cheek kisses.

"Erik is advisor to the Jewish Students Association," Charles says. 

"The Jewish Students Association being... those two kids?"

Erik shrugs. "It was Kitty's idea. We go out for Chinese food and a movie while everyone else trims the tree."

The boy Erik spoke to has been making his way slowly through the room, pausing occasionally to talk to other kids, but he's approaching the three of them now, and as he gets closer something about him seems to ping in Raven's mind. He looks almost familiar, in a strange way.

"Here is the surprise," Charles says, and there's so much love and pride in his voice that it catches Raven off guard. "Raven, I'd like you to meet David Haller. My son."

David shifts his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "Hi," he says--mumbles, really. She can recognize it, now, the resemblance to Charles, not least in the eyes, which are the same bright shade. It feels like he's studying her, taking account and judging her, which is both a little funny and a little annoying.

She catches Erik's eyes; he's leaned back against the wall, close but firmly out of the conversation, his arms folded across his chest. He gives her a sardonic smile and a barely perceptible shake of the head.

Raven is going to kill Irene when she gets home, she swears to God. All that mysterious shit about how Raven should really go to visit Charles for Christmas, and how important it was. Raven had done it, of course, because Irene is always right about these things. But honestly! _You really could have given me a hint_ , Raven thinks.

"David," Charles says, "this is your aunt Raven."

"How do you do?" David says, and he sticks out his hand politely for Raven to shake.

Later, after lights out has passed in the teenagers' wing, and Charles himself is out for the night on his sleeping meds, when it's just Raven and Erik in the kitchen with two of Erik's carefully hidden beers, Erik tells her how much less pleasant of an introduction to David _he_ had.

Raven laughs. After a moment, she says, "Charles has always wanted a family, you know. More than anything." Enough to take in a half-starved wild thief of a girl; enough to take in every mutant he's ever seen in need. 

Something in Erik's face softens for a moment, the way she's only ever seen it do about Charles, though it goes away just as quickly. "Well," Erik says, shaking his head, "he's sure as hell got one now."

They drink to it.

**Summer 1973**

David isn't sure what time it is when he wakes up, but judging by the sun it's still early. Much earlier than it feels, at any rate, but that makes sense. He crossed an ocean yesterday. It'll probably take time for his body to catch up. But this is where he lives now. With Charles. His father.

His _father_.

He had suspected, but he hadn't been sure. Not really. His mother had never talked about it, and in the last couple of years David had stopped asking. When she got sick, he had wondered if maybe--but no, she had taken the secret with her when she went. All she told him at the end was that her friend Rebecca would take him in when she was gone. Rebecca, who already had four annoying daughters in her small apartment and who made a face like smelling a fart every time anything to do with David's mutation came up. 

A handful of pictures and a few letters in the back of his mother's closet weren't much to go on, but it's what he had. He hadn't really planned what he would have done if he had come halfway across the world only to find Charles Xavier _wasn't_ his father.

But he is. It's all turned out all right, just like David hoped it would--or, well, almost. He hadn't planned on the embarrassing incident with the cabbie. He's still not sure what happened. He's gotten so much better with his powers lately, _far_ beyond where he'd started when they first appeared two years ago. And the money trick had worked before. It's how he got that far to begin with, his train ticket and airplane ticket and the food along the way. Maybe it was how tired he was, and jet-lagged. Maybe it just was that he had spent his very last dollar on the sandwich at the airport.

David's stomach growls as he considers that. It's enough to get him out of bed, comfortable as it is, in search of food.

He gets lost twice in the halls before he finally clamps on to the vague sense of a mind, following it like a thread in a labyrinth until he finally stumbles into the kitchen. He barely keeps from groaning when he realizes the mind belongs to the asshole from last night, who's standing at the counter spreading jelly on toast.

"Charles is still asleep," the man--Erik, his father had called him last night--says curtly, like they're already in the middle of a conversation. "There's a hot breakfast during term, but since it's summer you can fend for yourself. Hot and cold cereals in that cabinet, bowls in that one, silverware here."

In the time it takes David to gather a bowl of Cheerios and a banana, most of Erik's breakfast is gone. David sits down across from him, observing him out of the corner of his eye. He thinks he's being subtle, but after a minute Erik grunts in frustration and pushes his plate forward on the table, sitting back in his chair to give David a steely glare.

"If you're going to ask something, just ask," Erik says, and the impatience in his voice just makes the dislike David already feels for him bubble up even higher. 

David opens his mouth, but he forgets the words when Erik reaches out for his glass of water, and David sees his inner arm. 

Erik had been wearing the same clothes last night, but David hadn't noticed the tattooed number then. His mother had one just like it--that was another thing she refused to ever talk about, anything to do with the war or the camps. 

He misses her suddenly, a fierce throbbing ache in his gut. It's not fair. It's not fair that she left him. He's never going to see her again. 

David pushes the thought away, just like he has every other time it's popped up unwanted in his mind since she died. He's angry and flustered and Erik is still staring at him like he thinks David is just some punk kid, and David wants to say something smart and cutting and cruel.

"Whatever name you're planning on calling me, I've already heard it," Erik says. "You wouldn't go with mutie freak or dirty Jew, so it's probably faggot or pervert, I assume." He doesn't give David a chance to say anything, just steamrolls ahead. "You don't have to like me, David. But I expect it would be easier on Charles if you resign yourself to the situation at hand."

It hadn't worked last night, when David tried to use his ability on Erik. So it probably wouldn't work now, either. It's a shame. David's pretty sure it would be really satisfying. 

At any rate, Erik's words kill any doubt he might have that he misinterpreted some of the things they were saying last night. Erik is his father's...lover? Boyfriend? David doesn't know what they call that kind of thing. He doesn't really want to know. 

Erik gets up and rinses his plate in the sink. "Do you need help getting back to your room?"

"I'm fine," David says, as coldly as he can manage.

It's a lie, of course; he gets hopelessly lost on his way back, and it's only his father coming and finding him in one of the strange hallways that gets him on his way again.

"You'll learn your way around soon," his father tells him. 

David hasn't really ever been around another telepath, and his father's mind feels different than anybody else's he's ever known, cool and clear and comforting, like a cold pond on a hot day. David still feels angry, and lonely, and embarrassed, and confused, but--maybe a little less than before.

**Autumn 1962**

Shaw is dead. 

It's everything Erik has wanted, for the past eighteen years. The only thing that's mattered, really, at least until the past few months. His obsession. His life.

And now it's over.

It's funny, in a sort of ironic and painful way, that Erik never bothered to think before what it would be like, once he achieved his goal. Perhaps he always knew he would die in the attempt. But here he is, alive, nonetheless.

If he _had_ thought about it, he doesn't believe he would guessed he would feel so empty.

"What now?" Erik asks.

He's sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to the bed in Charles's hospital room. He had swung wildly back and forth, in those first few days, on whether or not he should even come to the hospital at all. Surely Charles wouldn't want him there. Surely Charles hated him now. Surely Charles saw him now, as he should have always seen Erik, for exactly what he is.

In the end, he couldn't stay away. The days were endless in that house like a tomb, empty and vast without Charles's personality to fill it. 

Charles screamed at him, and threw things, and Erik had yelled back despite telling himself he wouldn't. But Charles's eyes are already brighter, and the periods of his depression aren't quite as all-encompassing as they seemed those first few days. And he allows Erik to hold his hand now, from his seat beside the bed. If some of the nurses see and give disapproving looks, Erik has no problem ignoring them completely.

"You can do anything you want now," Charles says. "You know that."

"I want," Erik starts, and then he stops. What does he want? He wants to help mutants. He wants to make the world better for their kind. He's seen the worst of humanity, and how it treats those it considers different. There's nothing to stop it from happening again. There has to be a better way. 

Charles is watching him very closely. His expression is half-wary. "Do you remember," Charles says slowly, "when we were in Washington DC?"

"We played chess on the mall," Erik says.

Charles nods. "I told you then...there are so many who need guidance. Leadership. Training. I want to build a school, Erik. Imagine it."

It's not his own imagining he sees, but Charles's, shared between them, filtered with Charles's hopes and aspirations.

"There could be a place for you there," Charles continues. "If you chose."

Erik looks down between them, at their linked hands. A place with Charles, the two of them side-by-side, working together for their people.

Shaw is dead, and Erik's life is open before him now, full of possibilities he never knew existed. 

"I'll think about it," he tells Charles, but judging by the look in Charles's eyes, he knows perfectly well what Erik is going to decide.

**Late summer 1957**

"Surely you could stay a little longer," Charles wheedles. He's lounged half across the tiny bed, sharing the space with an open, battered suitcase half-full of clothes. "Come on, Gabrielle, think of all the fun we've had this summer. How much more we could have together!"

He gives her the grin that all of his observations of girls' minds has assured him is his most charming, and sure enough, when Gabrielle turns her head away from her closet, her thoughts are strumming with exasperated amusement. 

"You're ridiculous," she informs Charles, before throwing one of her dresses at his head. He catches it and sets it atop of the pile in her luggage. "And if you're going to smoke, at least open a window."

Charles lets out an exaggerated sigh, but he kneels up, leaning over far enough to push out the window and let in the fresh air. It rained this morning and there's a cool breeze, so it's not as beastly hot as it has been the last few days. He sits down again, leaning back against the wall with his legs folded criss-cross before him, silently smoking his cigarette as he watches Gabrielle continue to pack.

After a few minutes, he stubs out the butt in the ashtray on the nightstand and says, rather quietly, "I mean it, you know. You could stay."

Gabrielle goes still, frowning forward at her clothes. "I have a life back home, Charles."

"You could have a life here."

Charles pushes himself off the bed. He wraps himself around her from behind, burying his nose in her mass of dark, curly hair and inhaling the faint scent of her shampoo. The two of them are the same height, almost exactly. She leans back into him, but her body still feels tense, and he both feels and hears her sigh.

"I wish you would be serious sometimes," Gabrielle says.

Charles raises his head. "What makes you think I'm not being serious?"

"You never are." 

When she pulls away, he lets her go. His cigarettes and matches are still on the nightstand. He lights himself another one and gazes out the window, at the familiar and beloved Oxford landscape.

"I should go check on Raven," Charles says, after a bit longer. "You know how worried she gets." Less worried than annoyed, but a little white lie never hurt anything. It doesn't help that Raven doesn't care for Gabrielle, whom she insists on calling prissy and stuck-up, no matter how much Charles tries to explain differently. But then, Raven rarely cares for any of the girls Charles passes time with.

"All right," Gabrielle says. She already sounds far away.

It doesn't take very long to gather his things. He gives Gabrielle a hug before he goes, and she hugs back tightly. "If I write you, you will write back, won't you?" he whispers in her ear.

"Yes," she says, but Charles can see in her mind that she's almost certainly decided not to.

Still, once she's gone, he writes to her nonetheless, just in case she decides differently later.


End file.
